Grand Prize Guide: How to Get Prospects to Your Email ListFrom Social?

blog.antavo.com /en/grand-prize-contest-sweepstakes-f acebook/

Zsuzsi Szabó

Running sweepstakes and contests is a classic method of getting more people to your newsletter list. The realchallenge though is to turn the subscribers to paying customers! And this is where most marketingprofessionals fail.

You had a bunch of people entering your contest, you might have emailed them with custom offers and so on, butthings went wrong before they get to your email list…

The problem is, that the contest at t racted the wrong people. Entrants have never been interested in theproduct or service, they just wanted to win the grand prize offered in the contest.

Prize hunters are not potent ial customers

The wrong people on your list won’t buy, it messes up your metrics, makes you pay the expensive emailing tool,and after all, it’s just disappointing.

Turning email subscribers to customers start with having relevant people on the email list . In this post Iwill show you how to attract the right people, but first, let’s see when a grand prize is wrong.

Working hard on the wrong thing

Your contest’s grand prize is wrong, if…

1. it is not specific to your target audience

2. everyone wants to win it because it’s an awesome product

3. it’s an expensive gadget or another company’s gift card

Typically giving away gift cards from known vendors or an iPhone will not attract your customers. Everyone wouldwant to win it. Unless you define your customers as everyone, the grand prize attracted the wrong people.

An iPhone a ttracts everyone, s o i t’s a us ua l grand pr iz e o f fake contes ts . Th is one obvious ly wants your phone num ber . Onthe le ft i t s ays you cou ld win an iPhone but then on the r igh t i t s ays “ iPod”.

How togiveaway

relevant grand prizes?

First, you need to know who your customers are (customer segmentation) and what is your marketing goal(recruiting new customers, engaging with the current ones, making current customers upgrade).

Keep this in mind:

“If I give away a _____, then I will find people who are ______, and they are exactly my potential customers!”

Okay, so let’s put it to practice.

#1. Your own product or service

If you give away for f ree what you sell you can be sure that ent rants are actually interested in yourof fering.

You can also offer samples of your own products – multiple, smaller value prizes are better than one higher value.Let’s say you sell skincare products, so 20 pieces of a 5 g lotion is much better than a single 100 g lotion.

You can think about that, what’s more attractive? “Win a lotion!” or “Experience a new fragrance new every day in thenext month. We have 20 types of lotions and you can try all of them.”

Pro : subscribers are interested in your offering

Con: you can’t be sure that they would actually pay for it.

Antavo ’s cus tom er , The Inver ted Edge fas h ion com pany is g iving away a product from the i r o ffe r ing.

#2.Gif t

card

Give away a gif t card that people can spend in your shop. This way you can ensure that they areinterested in your of fering. Pay attention to the value. If your least expensive product starts from $100, then giveaway at least a $100 dollar gift card.

Also, it’s a very nice gesture if you pay the shipping too (in case of an online store).

Pro : subscribers are interested in your offering, and prepared to pay if the chosen product is more expensive.

Con: people may find that the grand prize is not a gift, but an obligation to buy, so they don’t enter at all.

#3. Consult ing

Interesting that so few companies do this.

Give personalized advice as a grand prize. It also lets you int roduce your of fering and gain t rust .

Let’s say you have a shoe store. You may have the opportunity to give away something to drive people to the store,but instead, you can take advantage of the skilled personnel already available in the shop. Offer a 30 minutessessions that help to figure out what shoes to wear.

Or you sell supplements. Instead of giving away your latest protein product, offer consulting so they get customadvice.

Consult ing as a grand prize works wherever skilled sales personnel needed. (If sales personnel needed,then it means that a special knowledge needed to choose / use the product hence consulting is valuable.)

At services consulting is often the service itself. Fitness instructors can give away 3 sessions for free for luckywinners. (At services you can call this grand prize as scholarships.)

The more winners you have, the better foot traffic for you.

Pro: inexpensive (you have sales people and customer service anyway), also perfect opportunity tointroduce your product offering.

Con: at web shops it may be trickier, however feasible. Giving fashion advice on video chat is less engaging,but still give a lot of value.

If you g ive away cons u l ting , you can m eet your cus tom ers . Als o good oppor tun i ty to s e l l . Wi th Antavo you can g ive away pr iz es to everys ubs cr ibers wi th the “g iveaway” app l ica tion .

#4. Complementary goods

Attract those people who know you or your competitors already – you can encourage them buy again or upgrade.Talking to those who already know you and need your product is different than talking to someone who has neverfelt the need to buy something that you offer.

Give away a complementary product to your main product . Those who want to win the complementaryproduct are certainly target customers.

Let’s say you sell cameras in a store. Instead of cameras that anybody would love to win, you give away a tripod.It helps to recruit those who already have a camera, and would like to take better pictures. These people are morelikely to upgrade to a better camera later, so you can start sending them offers.

If you sell contact lenses, then give away a contact lens cleaner. If you sell watches, give away free watch batterychange for the next 25 years (very good PR!).

If you s e l l cam eras , g ive away a tr ipod. Thos e who want to win atr ipod are l i ke ly to buy pro fes s iona l cam eras la ter .

Photo contes ts are great to choos e am bas s adors .

Pro: the subscribers you recruit will be super relevant and you can target them with a pitch.

Con: the promotion may be less viral

#5. Visibility

If you already have a large community, you canof fer visibilit y as a grand prize. Those who wantto be visible in f ront of your community arecertainly good customers, moreover,ambassadors.

Those companies can take advantage of this grandprize whose customers are ext rovert – typically withinentertainment or beauty. Also strong brands (read along study about status consumption here) with clearvision.

A bar or a night club can run a contest to find their “newface” who will be on every poster in the following yearas an ‘ambassador’.

Or if you offer cosmetics then you can choose amakeup ambassador who publishes new makeupideas every week. Gyms can also make such contests(almost beauty contests) to choose features customers.These ideal customers can help prospects to get toknow you.

Photo contests, video contests and essay contests are good tools to choose such ambassadors.

You may want to have a committee of judges who would make the final decision about the winner.

Pro: fans want attention, and they get it!

Con: you need to have some authority (customers, readers) to use publicity as a grand prize, and it does notwork when privacy is important.

#6. Exclusivityand VIPfeeling

The grand prizeshould be someext ra service onthe top of theknown service.Those, whoappreciate theext ra service arecertainlyrelevantcustomers.

Offering suchprizes do not costmuch, but attractpeople whoalready know thebase service andcan appreciate the added service.

Here you can win a pr iva te dancing les s on, dancing clas s es and dancing s hoes .

If you organize conferences then meeting with the speaker behind the scenes is a great grand prize.

If your company has a factory / workshop / bakery / any large volume production facility, then going behindthe scenes is a great grand prize. People like to see production lines, and be a VIP.

If you build video games, then having a contest winner testing your game is a real treat for the winner.

Plus, you can take nice pictures, and publish later on your channels (see #5.).

Pro: you offer something that can’t be even purchased (meeting with a speaker at a conference), and reallyunique. Subscribers are interested in your offering.

Con: you can’t know that if they would pay for it.

Ownorbuy

Basedonthese

examples above you can see that there is a difference between people who would want to own something (e.g. winit) and buy something. You need to target those people, who would buy, to be even more precise, buy yourproduct .

If the grand pr iz e is connected to your bus ines s , and peop le want to win i t, i t’s a l ready a good m atch. Buti f you want to ta rget even better , then find a grand pr iz e that a ttract thos e who wi l l be cus tom ers .

What do youthink?

Have you ever gaveaway an iPhone- likegadget? How itworked? Would youadd something to thislist? I would love to hearyour opinion!

Please share this postwith fellow social mediamanagers, B2Cmarketingprofessionals, eventorganisers, and thosewho are into fashion,beauty and fitness,online and offline retail.

Further reading

How to integrateemail and socialmedia marketing –Tips on JeffBullas‘s blog.

21 ways to buildyour email list –One of them isrunning contests,but many other tipsfrom the smart AnaHoffman.

12 reasons why your promotion campaign is not working – Including stories about wrong grand prizes onSocialMouths.

Strong premise, targeted grand prize and spreading the word about your promotion – Tips from NathalieLussier.

Should you want to t ry what you have just learned, sign up / log in to Antavo here, and start a f reet rial. An easy quiz is a good beginning!

Bio

Latest Posts

Zsuzsi Szabó

Zsuzsi is a co- founder of Antavo, a marketing tool to create sweepstakes, contests and giveawaysto Facebook, mobile and web. She is responsible for marketing and customer development. Antavois used by 10.000+ companies from 150+ countries on 27 languages. Connect with her on Twitterand Google+!

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